In the course of the individual processing steps involved in the fabrication of syringe bodies and like injection molded articles, e.g. from the end of cleaning up to the final labelling, the syringe bodies are generally handled in randomly distributed or piled masses. This means that the syringes must be oriented again for each new process step, i.e. they must be brought into a predetermined position or orientation for further processing. Particularly in mechanical processing this takes an exceptional amount of work and requires additional mechanical devices to perform this sorting or orientation.
There are already known auxiliary devices, e.g. bucket or cup chains, suspension rails or the like, with which the finished syringe bodies can be transported and further processed. However these devices, which are comparatively expensive and troublesome, can damage the syringes. Also such devices are susceptible to breakdown and are only adjustable to changing process conditions with great difficulty, if at all.
In commonly owned U.S. Pat. No. 4,774,772 an apparatus for handling finished syringe bodies comprises a planar support plate and a mounting plate provided with foot members and connected with the support plate. This mounting plate is positioned substantially parallel to the support plate by a plurality of spacers. The support plate and the mounting plate each have a plurality of openings for receiving the finished syringe bodies. Each support-plate opening is aligned along a respective axis with a respective mounting-plate opening and all of these axes are parallel. A retaining plate is provided with holes coaxial with the receiving openings and is connected detachably to the support plate on the side of the support plate facing away from the mounting plate. The edges of the holes in the retaining plate contact the flanges of the finished syringe bodies placed in the receiving openings.
It is thus possible in this system to mount the finished syringe bodies in the device in the individual processing stations in a plurality of arrangements and orientations, even upside down, so that particularly automatic processes can be carried out without the syringe bodies falling out of the apparatus. However holes of the retaining plate allow free access to the interior of the injection molding cylinder and/or the insertion of the plungers in the syringe bodies.
The disadvantage of this system is that the retaining plate must be mounted rather carefully on the mounting and support plates. The positioning elements must be carefully aligned in order to ensure perfect alignment of the retaining-plate holes with the mouths of the syringes.